New Marketplace-Edison Research Poll Shows Americans’ Economic
Anxiety Has Reached a New High on the Eve of the Election

Americans’ anxiety over their personal economic situation has
increased significantly in the past year

October 13, 2016 03:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Even while the economy has grown and continued to add jobs over the past
year, Americans have become increasingly anxious about their personal
economy – to the point where they’re losing sleep over it. Americans’
economic anxiety has increased since the spring of this year and is up
significantly from a year ago, according the latest Marketplace-Edison
Research Poll. The increased anxiety reflected in the poll is due to
a variety of factors including increased fear of losing a job in the
next 12 months, increased fear over the ability to make payments on
monthly expenses, and individual’s overall feeling of financial security.

Using responses to the poll, Marketplace and Edison Research created the
Economic Anxiety Index®, a number on a scale from 0-100 that is
calculated from answers to a battery of questions. the Economic Anxiety
Index® describes just how stressed out people feel about their personal
financial situation. The higher the number, the more economic stress
someone is feeling.

Key Findings

The Economic Anxiety Index® is now 36, up 20 percent from a year ago.

More Americans are increasingly worried about losing their job, the
ability to pay their mortgage or rent, and saving for retirement.
Thirty percent of Americans are very fearful that they will lose their
job in the next six months, up from 10% a year ago.

More than a third of Americans, 39%, are saying that their personal
financial situation actually causes them to lose sleep.

One quarter of Americans completely distrust the economic data
reported by the federal government, including statistics like the
unemployment rate, the number of jobs added, and the amount of
consumer spending.

Almost half of Donald Trump supporters (48%) completely distrust
the economic data reported by the federal government compared to
only 5% of Hillary Clinton supporters.

Sixty-four percent of Americans are frequently or sometimes anxious
about their financial situation and only 34% of Americans feel
financially secure.

Economic Fairness

Is the economy rigged in favor of certain groups? A majority of
Americans, 62%, think so. Majorities of all demographic groups agree,
including Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and all income levels.

There is consensus as to who the economy is rigged to benefit. A
majority of respondents who think the economy is rigged agree – it is
rigged for the rich, politicians, banks and bank executives, and
corporations. However, supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
differ dramatically on how the rigged economic system is benefiting
other subgroups. Sixty-six percent of Trump supporters say the economy
is rigged for people who receive government assistance, compared to
32% of Clinton supporters; and 62% of Clinton supporters say the
economy is rigged for whites, only 21% of Trump supporters say so.

Partisan Findings

More than two-thirds of Americans (68%) are either dissatisfied or
angry with elected officials in Washington. Despite the
dissatisfaction with elected officials in Washington as a whole, 52%
approve of the way President Obama is handling the economy.

Even with a Presidential election coming up, Americans are split as to
whether they can influence the government. Half of all Americans say
that there is not much people can do to influence the government in
Washington and half say that people who are willing to make the effort
can influence the government.

Clinton supporters are more hopeful, however – with 59% saying
that if they make the effort, they can influence the government,
compared with 44% of Trump supporters

Dissatisfaction with the current candidates for President has steadily
increased over the past year as the nominees have emerged from the
primaries and the general election has taken shape. More than half of
Americans (52%) are dissatisfied by the candidates for President, up
from 35% in February, in the middle of the primary election seasons.

When asked to describe the presidential election, 71% of Americans
thought the word “afraid” describes it well. However, more than half
of Americans (55%) thought the word “hopeful” also describes it well.

Marketplace-Edison Research Poll Methodology

The Marketplace Edison Research Survey is a national survey of Americans
ages 18 years and older. A total of 1,036 respondents were interviewed
with 501 interviews conducted by telephone and 535 interviews conducted
online. Among the telephone interviews, 250 were conducted via a
landline phone and 251 interviews conducted via a cell phone so that we
could achieve the proper proportion of coverage of households in the
United States that do not have a landline phone. The landline and cell
phone sample of phone numbers and the email addresses for the online
survey were provided by Survey Sampling International (SSI).

The average length of the telephone interviews was nineteen minutes. The
telephone interviews were conducted from October 1st – 8th,
2016.

The data was weighted to match the most recent United States population
estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau for age, gender, race and region
of the country.

About Marketplace

The Marketplace®
portfolio of programs are produced and distributed by American Public
Media®, one of the largest producers and distributors of public radio
programming in the world. Marketplace®, MarketplaceWeekend®,
Marketplace Morning Report® and Marketplace Tech® are
currently broadcast by nearly 800 public radio stations nationwide and
heard by more than 12 million weekly listeners. Marketplace® has
the largest broadcast audience of any business news program, on radio or
television, in the country. Marketplace® programs also have a
robust digital audience, with more than 5 million podcast downloads and
stream requests every month, on apps like iTunes, Slacker and TuneIn. Marketplace®
programs are noted for their timely, relevant and accessible coverage of
business, economics and personal finance, focusing on the latest
national and international business news, the global economy and wider
events linked to the financial markets. For more information on Marketplace®
programs, visit marketplace.org.
For more information on American Public Media, visit americanpublicmedia.org.

Since its founding in 1994, Edison Research has conducted over 11,000
research assignments in 38 countries. Edison works with a broad array of
commercial clients, governments and NGOs, including AMC Theatres, The
Brookings Institute, Disney, The Gates Foundation, Google, the U.S.
International Broadcasting Bureau, Oracle, Pandora, The Pew Research
Center, Samsung, Siemens, SiriusXM Radio, and Univision Communications.

Since 2003, Edison Research has been the sole provider of exit poll
information to ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC and the Associated Press, having
conducted exit polls and collected precinct vote returns to project and
analyze results for every major presidential primary and general
election. Edison recently completed its 2016 Presidential Primary and
Caucus coverage, and is currently preparing for the November 2016
General Election. This exit poll is the largest single-day survey
research project in the world, with more than 100,000 interviews.